97particular target is the unexamined power of the
Samoan churches, especially when he was growing
up, but also their legacy, which lingers in the emphasis
on obedience to Bible teachings about sexuality and in
the harsh discipline meted out to children. Pressure on
Samoan youth over customary expectations remains
a leading cause of youth suicide, an issue which his
painting Relief tied to a Tree (1997) addresses. In a series
of stark pencil and ink drawings with sardonic titles—
Marvellous Road, Otahuhu (2015)—he addresses wife-
beating and child abuse. The ongoing vulnerability of
children is also the subject of the mixed-media series
An Unlovely Sorry (2019), where the implication is that
early brutalisation will blight the delicate, unformed
personalities of the babies depicted forever.
Leleisi’uao was brought up a Christian, and it’s
not surprising that his subsequent disillusionment
has led to the creation of some scornful, scabrous,
blasphemous and mordantly funny paintings, such
as Honest to God (1998), depicting muscular clerics
intimidating congregations with brute strength and
physical retribution in the here and now, as well
as demanding absolute obedience. The Quixotic
Crucifixion of Iesu (2012) takes this one step further
by showing evangelical hypocrisy mutating into
bigotry in a satirical manner reminiscent of Goya,
Philip Guston and Albert Tucker, as vigilante figures
in flaring white sheets and the anonymising hoods
of the Ku Klux Klan attend to the crucifixion of Jesus
between two thieves as a kind of reality TV show, in
front of an audience wearing hoodies.
The sprawling contents of Kamoan Mine confirm
that here is an artist concerned with busting open
genres and healing up grievances, while not being
above a little mockery on the side. Leleisi’uao, on
this showing of artwork after artwork, is like some
motorbike speedway rider or stock-car racer who
chops and changes gear constantly and weaves his
way around the racetrack—or gallery walls—with
carnivalesque flamboyance. Part dutiful iconographer,
part witty iconoclast, he veers between angry and
sour, mellow and sweet, comical and sublime, with
bewildering speed and proficiency. In this show he
can take us, at what seems like warp speed, from the
doom and gloom of Samoan souls tormented by devils
and bogged down in a Dantesque inferno—as in the
I need to see Alien series (2006)—to the exuberance of
anti-gravity Samoan astronauts in lavalavas playing
rugby in outer space, as in the painting Out in space
(2003). His emblems, too, run the gamut at pace, from
the sanctification of Elvis clad in white (Elvisi, 2006), to
the moptop Beatles on stage, to a cleaner’s bucket and
mop, to the old New Zealand dollar bill plastered on
various paintings, with the Queen’s head defaced by a
Hitler moustache.
Art-making is a kind of prolongation of childhood
play and much of Leleisi’uao’s body of work is
grounded in the games, especially the indoor games,(opposite above)
ANDY LELEISI’UAO
Marvellous Road,
Otahuhu 2015
Pencil & ink on paper,
280 x 380 mm.
(Photograph: Max White)
(opposite below)
ANDY LELEISI’UAO
The Quixotic Crucifixion of
Iesu 2012
Acrylic on canvas,
770 x 1220 mm.
(Photograph: Max White)
(right)
ANDY LELEISI’UAO
The Grounded Knight 2015
Acrylic on canvas,
1520 x 1520 mm.
(Photograph: Max White)